Heinrich Klaasen not retained as Cricket South Africa announces central contracts for 2025-26 season

Heinrich Klaasen played for South Africa in ICC Champions Trophy 2025.

Cricket South Africa (CSA) has released their central contracts for the 2025-26 season and a total of 20 players are part of the list. Interestingly, wicket-keeper batter Heinrich Klaasen is not part of the list of 20 players, out of which, two have been given hybrid contracts.

Klaasen retired from test cricket in January 2024, and was part of only white-ball contract in the last season. The right-handed batsman was part of the South Africa team that played in ICC Champions Trophy earlier this year and ICC T20 World Cup last year.

The 33-year-old stalwart played only four test matches before retiring from the longest format. However, he has featured in a total of 60 ODIs and 58 T20Is for the Proteas. However, he has wished to priortize T20 franchise career in future. CSA also informed that discussions over Klaasen’s contract are undergoing and a final decision will be made soon.

Cricket South Africa’s central contract list for 2025-26

In CSA’s central contract list, Senuran Muthusamy, Kwena Maphaka, and Lizaad Williams are the three new members. David Bedingham, Wiaan Mulder, and Lizaad Williams’ contracts have been upgraded for the 2025-26 season.

David Miller and Rassie van der Dusse have been allotted hybrid contracts, which means they will participate in special bilateral series. Senior members like Temba Bavuma, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Lungi Ngidi, and Kagiso Rabada have been retained in the list. Below is the complete list of CSA’s central contracts for the 2025-26 season.

Temba Bavuma, David Bedingham, Nandre Burger, Gerald Coetzee, Keshav Maharaj, Kwena Maphaka, Aiden Markram, Wiaan Mulder, Senuran Muthusamy, Tony de Zorzi, Reeza Hendricks, Marco Jansen, Lungi Ngidi, Kagiso Rabada, Ryan Rickelton, Tristan Stubbs, Kyle Verreynne, Lizaad Williams.

Hybrid contracts: David Miller, Rassie van der Dussen.

Cricket South Africa (CSA) today announced the Proteas Men’s contracted squad for the 2025/26 season. CSA has awarded 18 national contracts and two hybrid contracts, which will run from 01 June 2025 – 31 May 2026. ⁰With the introduction of hybrid contracts, David Miller and… pic.twitter.com/n2hIQYpLW6

— Proteas Men (@ProteasMenCSA) April 7, 2025

Interestingly, other than Klaasen, Bjorn Fortuin, Andile Phehlukwayo, Anrich Nortje, and Tabraiz Shamsi were other popular names who were absent from the list. While Shamsi opted out of the central contracts last season, Nortje didn’t sign a deal with CSA when the previous contracts were formed.

Meanwhile, Klaasen is part of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025. He has played five games so far in the tournament and accounts for 152 runs at a batting average of 30.40 and a batting strike rate of 168.89.

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